Mercy Hospital Offering Buyouts To 99 Employees

Mercy Hospital is offering early retirement buyouts to 99 employees in an effort to trim expenses ahead of its eventual consolidation of its operations at the hospital’s Fore River complex, hospital officials confirmed. Employees in specific job categories who have worked for Mercy for at least 10 years and are age 60 or older are eligible for the buyout, announced on Tuesday in an email to workers as a “one-time offer.” Employees have 45 days to decide whether to accept the buyout, which would be a week’s pay for every year of employment up to one year’s pay. Nurses and many other job categories are eligible for the buyouts, but doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants, nurse anesthetists, managers and employees who work with patients with eating disorders are not. “This offer is a way for Mercy to reduce expenses consistent with our vision of the organization’s future, while offering eligible employees the opportunity to consider this offer that might enable them to accelerate their financial planning for retirement,” according to an unsigned email sent to employees from Mercy Hospital’s human resources department.